About this weblog

Here we'll explore the nexus of legal rulings, Capitol Hill
policy-making, technical standards development, and technological
innovation that creates -- and will recreate -- the networked world as we
know it. Among the topics we'll touch on: intellectual property
conflicts, technical architecture and innovation, the evolution of
copyright, private vs. public interests in Net policy-making, lobbying
and the law, and more.

Disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this weblog are those of the authors and not of their respective institutions.

In the letter, OK Go admit that they don't control their videos on YouTube, EMI does. Even though the band makes its own vids, EMI is fronting them money for the production and taking ownership of the result. As a result of EMI's deal with YouTube, EMI doesn't get paid if you embed a YouTube vid, so EMI turns that off. Because we all know how important those fractions of a penny are to this quarter's bottom line...

To the band's credit, they seem to understand quite well the position that everyone is in, including themselves, the labels, and the fans. There aren't any magic solutions here - as Copyfight has been arguing for years, we need new and better business models that keep creative people fed and productive. If big record labels happen to die along the way we won't be shedding any tears. Nor, it seems, will OK Go, who provide the embed code on their blog page for the Vimeo version of their video, and these words of wisdom:

EMI won't let us let you embed our YouTube videos. It's a decision that bums us out. We've argued with them a lot about it, but we also understand why they're doing it. They’re aware that their rules make it harder for people to watch and share our videos, but, while our duty is to our music and our fans, theirs is to their shareholders, and they believe they’re doing the right thing.

The kind of "slavery" in effect here is rather of a different nature from the real sort practiced at other times/places. Is overuse of the term as a metaphor for "retrospectively inconvenient voluntary business arrangement" really helpful?

bklyn: Yes, EMI know. But "tons of people forwarding" isn't something that shows up on a quarterly profit/loss statement. The building of a band's long-term reputation and the way that contributes to profits is much harder to measure.

Frank: You're right. Slavery is a real problem and I shouldn't use the word so flippantly. I'll leave it in place for this entry but try to be more careful in the future.

What's shocking is that OK Go's attorney didn't get this negotiated into the deal. It is something that anyone could have seen coming - everyone knows how EMI operates and they should have insisted on a specific carve out to permit embeds.

Of course EMI has to own the AV masters, but if I were representing the band, embeds would have been made a deal breaker. With as popular as the band became pre-deal, they had the luxury to shop around.